Page 30 of Time's Fool

“You, too,” she told me. “If we are to team up, while we will try to keep you as innocent as possible, there are things you may learn. Things you cannot be allowed to retain. You understand?”

I shrugged. “Yes.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “A memory charm doesn’t trouble you?”

“Not as long as I get paid.”

The young brunette made an unhappy noise. “A mercenary! I should have known! That’s what we’ve been reduced to?”

“She is my servant, and you are dealing with me,” Mircea said, pulling their attention back to him. “And you have not answered my question.”

“Nor will we,” the older witch said. “But you can rest assured, the Pythia’s task is more troublesome than this. In fact, this would be an easy enough affair, what we call a snatch and grab, if not for Morgan’s somewhat unique ability.”

“Morgans,” the younger witch corrected unhappily. “There are others.”

“Or so she says,” the older witch sneered. “Forgive me if I doubt her veracity.”

“Would one of you please explain precisely what is happening?” Mircea asked, with the air of a man whose tether is fraying.

“No,” the young witch said, and drank beer.

“If you want my help, you will change that tune,” he snapped. “I am not stepping off a cliff with no idea where to find the bottom. And if I am not to be allowed to retain these memories in any case—”

“We will tell you what we can,” the older witch said, shooting another glance at the younger.

“What is a Pythia?” I asked, as it seemed like it might be relevant. And because, unlike Mircea, I didn’t know.

“The Chief Seer of the Supernatural World,” the older woman said, readily enough. “But her job is more complicated than that. She—and to a limited degree, her court—have the ability to slip time’s leash and travel to different centuries—”

“Beg pardon?” I said, because I’d obviously misunderstood.

But she just kept talking.

“—which is, of course, a very dangerous thing to do, and is limited to times of extremis—”

The young witch snorted into her beer.

“—of which there unfortunately have been many recently. But nonetheless, the Pythia has been doing an excellent job of managing things—”

“Managing what?” I asked, confused.

“A great many affairs, in a great many times—”

There was that word again, and it made no more sense now than it had before. “A great many times?” I repeated.

“The Pythia can travel into past moments, days, even years, as easily as we walk through a door,” Mircea said, surprising me. “She causes a . . . type of portal . . . to open up, but instead of going to a different place, it goes to another time.”

“Or both,” the older witch said. “We can do both.”

I decided to ignore her, because my head was spinning enough as it was.

“I know how it sounds,” Mircea told me. “But the past doesn’t cease to exist once we have moved through it. It is still there, although that door is closed to us. She, however, has the key.”

I tried to process this. I tried valiantly. I failed.

“But . . . why would anyone want to go to another time, even were that possible?” I asked.

“Because of this!” the younger witch said, gesturing about again and looking angry. “Have you not been paying attention?”

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